Controversial cameras may offer clues in NOLA jailbreak

NEW ORLEANS — A nonprofit organization that assists law enforcement investigations through surveillance camera systems says it assisted New Orleans police with the capture of at least two of the 10 inmates who escaped from a local prison last week.

Project N.O.L.A. operates around 5,000 cameras around the downtown district, including 200 that include facial recognition technology, the organization said. The camera system picked up footage of two of the escapees in the French Quarter hours after the jailbreak.

Bryan Lagarde, the executive director of Project N.O.L.A., told NewsNation that if the camera system’s facial recognition technology detects someone who is wanted by police, an instant alert is sent to nearby law enforcement agents that someone who is possibly being sought may be in a particular area.

As tips are dispatched to police or other local, state or federal authorities, either other police officials or Project N.O.L.A. employees can pull up the camera’s footage to determine whether the person is still in the vicinity.

“It’s a lot of watching involved,” Lagarde said.

However, New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick told NOLA.com that despite the nonprofit’s claims that the camera system helped lead police to two of the escapees, her department did not receive any alerts about the possible location of the inmates.

The news outlet reported that Kirkpatrick suspended use of the system in April and said that a 2022 city ordinance places limits on the department’s reliance on facial recognition technology. The ordinance states that police must exhaust all other methods of investigation and then seek a supervisor’s permission to use the technology.

New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick is seen at the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club's 2025 Zulu Parade on Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images)

The outlet reported that the department had been receiving real-time alerts from Project N.O.L.A. since 2022 but then stopped receiving them last month under Kirkpatrick’s orders.

In a statement from a police spokesperson, the department told NOLA.com that Kirkpatrick only recently learned that the department was receiving real-time alerts and suspended the system once she learned it was being used.

However, emails obtained by NewsNation show Kirkpatrick had been in communication with Lagarde about the group's cameras as early as 2022.

Kirkpatrick told NewsNation on Friday that she recently learned that some officers may have been using Project N.O.L.A.'s mobile app, which may have put the department in violation of the city ordinance. She said that because Project N.O.L.A. is a private organization, the department was in the process of determining whether their cameras were included in the ordinance involving facial recognition.

The police chief said she suspended the use of the service to give the department time to determine whether using the Project N.O.L.A. technology was outside of the city ordinance's boundaries. She said that officials were in the process of writing an updated version of the city ordinance when the jailbreak occurred.

"We simply were pausing (the use of the technology) to make sure we were clearly within the ordinance of the city," Kirkpatrick said.

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has said that the facial recognition aspect of the system violates a person’s right to privacy and their security.

Since last week’s jailbreak, five of the 10 inmates have been captured, and five other people have been arrested for assisting the inmates. Police are still actively searching for the remaining escaped inmates but acknowledge that they may be out of the state by now.

However, all of the inmates who have been captured were apprehended within 10 miles of the New Orleans city limits.

Kirkpatrick told NewsNation on Friday that investigators have actionable intelligence that three of the five inmates who remain at large are still in the greater New Orleans area and that the remaining two may be outside of Louisiana.